“With its ominous title and front-cover description (‘Medicine disregarded it … Antibiotics can’t control it …’), Maryn McKenna’s Superbug is packaged as a bio-thriller. In this literary subgenre, encompassing both fiction (The Andromeda Strain) and nonfiction (The Hot Zone, as well as the book under review), the security and predictability of modern civilization are suddenly shattered by the outbreak of an enigmatic infectious disease. We see the terrible truth that our way of life is fragile and tenuous, subject to wild, dark forces. The stories’ heroes—usually doctors and scientists—strive to make sense of the plague and turn back the tide of entropy. At the end of these tales, when order has been restored, we feel a rush from our brush with danger and relief that the chaos has been calmed. But instead of providing the consolation of a happy ending, Superbug warns that the worst is yet to come.”
